Michael is a veteran of nearly four decades of financial services regulation. He worked at the Bank of England for 29 years, was a Managing Director of the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) from 1998 to 2004 and the Inspector of Banks & Trust Companies at the Central Bank of The Bahamas. Michael is supported by an extremely strong team of senior ex-regulators and experienced industry practitioners and is also able to draw on independent specialist consultants, together with Promontory colleagues from our other global offices.
The team focuses on providing expert advice and guidance to the financial services industry, including the full range of universal banks, investment banks, insurance companies, asset managers, brokers and hedge funds. An important addition to financial services is the extremely well regarded global Privacy & Data Protection Practice, which was established in the London office in early 2010 in response to a growing requirement among UK businesses for support in complying with data protection regulation.
The team has undertaken numerous assignments across a wide range of topics and is particularly proud of its portfolio of ongoing client relationships/repeat business. Notable assignments have included assisting clients through:
- Preparing senior management teams for FSA ARROW reviews, Business Model Reviews and Approved Person interviews;
- Developing effective compliance risk management frameworks and functions;
- Undertaking reviews required by the regulator;
- Developing and delivering bespoke training, including for anti market abuse, AML, financial promotions, sanctions, complaints handling, data protection and privacy;
- Reviewing firms governance arrangements;
- Assisting in the development and execution of AML and Sanctions programmes, including monitoring, training and forensic transaction monitoring capabilities;
- Providing insights into regulatory developments in the UK, EU and US enabling clients to develop appropriate regulatory relation strategies;
- Developing data protection governance strategies and helping firms’ to put in place programmes to deal with personal data security breaches, complaints, investigations or audit requests; and
- Assisting clients in meeting their data protection obligations with respect to third party due diligence, monitoring and controls.